


wild flowers that are never seen in spring

by Esmenet



Series: Knife and Ink [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Canon Character of Color, Character of Color, Gen, Knives, POV Female Character, Present Tense, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:03:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmenet/pseuds/Esmenet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Fire Lord does not work her fingers to the bone. She can't afford to not use them afterward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wild flowers that are never seen in spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selden/gifts).



> This is set in a universe where, upon the death or banishment of the entire royal family, the Fire Nation loses its long-standing protection against the Spirit World. (fulselden: Yes, this is in the aca!Zuko 'verse.)

To banish a spirit of winter back to its northern homelands, three things are needed and two more are wise to have.

First, clarity of mind. (She is never without it.)

Second, blazing hot steel. (The handles of her knives burn even through her gloves, a reassuring pain.)

Third, the essence of summer. (Paper crackles quietly as she breathes, a poem composed and written in the Si Wong Desert.)

Mai has no time to find a heavy coat or search out the creature's name. Very few have time for such things these days: spirit-hunting was once a rare and elaborate thing, traps and banishments woven by a temple's worth of Fire Sages. Now it is stripped as bare as can be, elaborate containment jugs exchanged for simple unglazed pots and layered ceremonial robes with protection woven into every inch for a single silken scarf. The islands overflow with ghosts and spirits, and those with the knowledge and skill to do anything about them are stretched thin and tight across the land and sea.

A week ago, there had been rice growing here. Now everything in sight is snow and ice and blistering wind.

She rearranges her knives in their box of glowing coals, and waits for the spirit to show itself.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is paraphrased from a translation of poem #323 of the Kokinshuu.
> 
>  _when the snow crystals  
>  fall on the sleeping trees and  
> grasses | there bloom wild  
> flowers that are never seen  
> on branches or stems in spring_


End file.
